Summary: A special update on the world’s oldest alphabet featured in the films The Moses Controversy and Journey to Mount Sinai.
And Moses wrote down all the words of the Lord. He rose early in the morning and built an altar at the foot of the mountain, and twelve pillars, according to the twelve tribes of Israel. – Exodus 24:4 (ESV)
Serabit el-Khadim Inscriptions
We have an exciting update on the Proto-Sinaitic script found at the Egyptian mines in the Sinai Peninsula. Tim Mahoney interviewed Rabbi Mori Michael Shelomo Bar Ron and Dr. Pieter (Peter) van der Veen, who played a big role in the latest film, The Israel Dilemma. This article is the first of a 2-part series that contains segments from their podcast discussion.
The Proto-Sinaitic scripts were discovered in 1904, by famous Egyptologist and archeologist Sir Flinders Petrie and his wife Hilda, at a mining site in Western Sinai called Serabit el-Khadim. In the early 20th century, German scholar Herbert Grimme realized the importance of the inscriptions as proto-alphabetic script. He believed the script was ancient Hebrew, related to Israel’s history during the time of Moses and the Exodus.
Since that time, although recognizing that these are clearly alphabetic inscriptions of a Semitic language, scholars distanced themselves from the potential Biblical connection. A number of scholars have proposed wide-ranging translations for some of the over two dozen inscriptions that have been found mainly in the Sinai, with a few near Egypt’s Nile valley. Mori Michael has reengaged with Grimme’s idea and is currently working on writing about his fantastic findings. While his views about the translations of these inscriptions differ from those of Professor Douglas Petrovich who was featured in our film The Moses Controversy, both see these as the result of Israelites during their time in Egypt.
Alphabet Versus Language
TIM MAHONEY: What is the difference between the alphabet and a language?
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Languages are how people communicate. Writing began with pictures, hieroglyphs and signs to represent words. Egyptian hieroglyphs included nearly 800 different signs. They were very detailed and required artistic skill to draw, thus writing was limited to just the elite. The transition from complex pictures representing words to simple signs representing sounds appeared in ancient Egypt around the 12th Dynasty, at the time the Semites or Hebrews were living there. This phonetic alphabet or sound-based writing system, modified from Egyptian hieroglyphs, enabled a whole population to learn to read and write.
PIETER VAN DER VEEN: It was the same in Mesopotamia with the very complicated written form of the Akkadian language. Few people could actually use these scripts.
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Now to compare, the Hebrew Bible has nearly 9,000 distinct words and all of them can be written with just 22 simple sound-based letter signs. The alphabet dramatically expanded access to written words.
Moses and the Torah
TIM MAHONEY: This is significant for our film The Moses Controversy because many modern scholars were denying that Moses was the author of the Torah. But according to the Torah, Moses taught the Israelites God’s covenant with commands to write the words on doorposts and teach them to their children. This wouldn’t be possible if the people weren’t literate. So, the question is: Were these letters written by the Israelites?
PIETER VAN DER VEEN: When the Israelites descended into Egypt, according to the Biblical story in Genesis, God had already provided for them by sending Joseph ahead as a slave. Joseph eventually became the most important person under Pharaoh, with a lot of influence and many people working for him, including scribes. Imagine the development of an alphabetic written language that could easily be used by many people. To implement this change, a high-ranking person with a lot of personnel would be needed. Joseph indeed could have had a big part to play in the development of this alphabetic script.
TIM MAHONEY: What I understand is this script became the basis of all alphabets and then spread throughout the world. Is that correct?
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Yes. In fact, it seems that even during the time of the sojourn in Egypt, this system began to spread and to develop into various branches of Semitic script, some of which would become the Arabian and Assyrian scripts. All these and what we use today as Hebrew writing, came from Proto-Sinaitic or proto-alphabetic script.
Joseph in Egypt
TIM MAHONEY: So, descendants of Abraham were in Egypt, and during the time of Joseph, Egyptian hieroglyphs were made into phonetic Hebrew letters?
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Yes, but we suggest this phonetic alphabet actually may have come from the East into Egypt with the Semites. It is not a given that Joseph created it, even though it makes sense. So, we should leave open the possibility that Jacob’s sons may have brought this alphabet from the Levant, which also makes very good sense. It is at this point in time we begin seeing an explosion of proto-alphabetic writing in Egypt and Sinai, but not before.
PIETER VAN DER VEEN: It is only from Egypt’s late 12th Dynasty onwards, the time where we date the descent of Jacob and his sons into Egypt, that we find a far more systematized alphabetic script. Nowhere do we have as many inscriptions related to a specific group that partly lived in the eastern Nile Delta, where the Israelites lived according to the Biblical text, and in western Sinai where many people from Egypt, including Asiatics, were working for Pharaoh. So it may have been brought by foreigners. Other high-ranking Israelites may have developed this writing even more. It would have been a process, but I think the person or engine behind it, could well have been Joseph.
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Dr. Ludwig Morenz from Bonn University said, during our discussions and in his textbook, that many of the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions are clearly dated to the time of Pharaoh Amenemhat III, who we very confidently tie to the time of Joseph.
Moses and Older Writing
PIETER VAN DER VEEN: One possibility we want to discuss is: Could Moses have had access to older inscriptions that he incorporated into his own text?
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Considering Moses was a prince, and according to both revised chronology of Dr. Van der Veen and new chronology of David Rohl, he would have been raised in the court of the Pharaoh shortly after the time of Hammurabi. So, Moses would have been very familiar with cuneiform, the type of writing or script that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob would’ve been writing in.
PIETER VAN DER VEEN: The Akkadian script was the lingua franca, like English is today. Moses would have been trained in many languages, including Akkadian, and would have had access to these inscriptions. But this is only one part of the story. The other option is that we may have precursor proto-alphabetic inscriptions as old or even older than Abraham. Abraham’s own scribes could have written down his experiences with God and everything relating to his days. So, there may have been proto-alphabetic inscriptions which were handed down to Moses that he used in the Biblical text.
TIM MAHONEY: That’s encouraging. These were very intelligent people. So, there was some form of communicating the past, whatever the writing from, whether from the time of Joseph or earlier from the time of Abraham and maybe even Noah.
Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb
TIM MAHONEY: These inscriptions were found at a very specific site, Serabit el-Khadim, where there are two peaks, Jebel Saniyah and Jebel Horeba, which you suggest are Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb. What do you find significant about these inscriptions in connection to the golden calf cult?
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: The Bedouins preserved the name Horeba which is etymologically identical to Horeb, in terms of the way that the words are passed down and merged. What is tremendously powerful is at the foot of these mountains, which loom large in the distance, we see ground zero for a revolution against the golden calf cult in these inscriptions. One of the points that separates my work from others is how open I am to different opinions but I have confidence at this time that I have seen the full picture. I have now read, interpreted, and come to an understanding of the full set of Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions that are in the authoritative textbook of Bonn University by Dr. Ludwig Morenz.
Cave of Slaves – Serabit el-Khadim
MORI MICHAEL SHELOMO BAR RON: Moses and Aaron came to the Pharaoh saying: “Let my people go for three days into the desert so that they may serve me.” Now, the Pharaoh may have been wicked and stubborn, but he was not an idiot. Moses needed an argument that would have had the potential to convince him. So, what does “three days into the desert” mean? Let’s not think in terms of the Israelites moving slowly with their animals and elderly, but imagine a fleet-footed runner bringing mail sent by royal decree all the way to the place of seasonal operations, where the slaves were actually working. That is Serabit el-Khadim, which literally means “Cave of the Slaves” in Arabic. Now this journey would have taken the later exiting Israelites weeks and weeks to arrive.
So, there needed to have been a center that the Pharaoh would have been familiar with where the Israelites wanted to go to serve their God. We find this place, three days out from Egypt, where there are inscriptions lauding El or God and calling him Av which means father. Also, there are inscriptions cursing out and admonishing the followers of Ba’alat, or Hathor the Egyptian cow goddess. All this is found with these two very looming mountains in the background, not small in the distance, which was a surprise to me. I have Patterns of Evidence to thank for these incredible images of Jebel Saniyah and Jebel Horeba, which literally mean Mount Sinai and Mount Horeb.
We also have oral tradition from the Jews and a very ancient people, who I believe to be the continuing ember of the Kohanic establishment of priests for the Northern Kingdom, the Samaritans. Both of these camps, who do not recognize each other, have a tradition that Sinai and Horeb were two twin peaks.
Conclusion
Stay tuned for part 2 of this discussion in an upcoming article, where Tim Mahoney, Mori Michael Shelomo Bar Ron, and Pieter Van der Ven discuss more about the specific site where these inscriptions were found, Serabit el-Khadim, and the twin peaks they propose are Mount Sinai and Horeb. They also talk about what they believe the inscriptions say, including worship and desecration of Ba’alat, the Egyptian cow-goddess alongside worship of El, the Israelite God. Keep Thinking!
TOP PHOTO: Inscriptions 374 (right) and 375 (left) found at Serabit Mine M. (credit: “The New ProtoSinaitic Inscriptions” in (1936) Excavations and Protosinaitic Inscriptions at Serabit El Khadem: Report of the Expedition of 1935, Studies and documents, Christophers: Romain Butin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
NOTE: Not every view expressed by scholars contributing to podcast content necessarily reflects the views of Patterns of Evidence. We include perspectives from various sides of debates on Biblical matters so that our audience can become familiar with the different arguments involved.
